LONDON: The hefty carbon footprint of global shipping networks that crisscross our oceans and keep the world’s economy afloat will come under scrutiny next week, as countries wrestle over measures to slash planet-heating pollution.

Nations are under pressure to agree ambitious emission reduction targets and consider a tax on pollution by the sector at a key meeting of the International Maritime Organisation. Currently shipping belches out roughly the same level of greenhouse gases as aviation.

The IMO Marine Environment Protection Commission (MEPC) meeting, held in London from Monday to Friday, is likely to pit climate-vulnerable nations — particularly Pacific islands — and some richer countries against big exporters such as China.

“The climate crisis is an existential threat to Pacific small island developing states, and many other countries, but can be seen as less urgent by countries with superior resources,” Michael Prehn, the IMO delegate for the Solomon Islands, said.

Ships transport 90pc of the world’s goods and the sector emits around a billion tonnes of greenhouse gases every year

“This is why the Pacific has been consistently pressing for the highest possible ambition in climate regulation.”

Net-zero

Shipping, which is responsible for around two per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, is judged to be off course in the fight against climate change.

Efforts to decarbonise so far centre around a 2018 IMO decision that instructed shipping firms to reduce CO2 emissions by 50pc by 2050, from 2008 levels. But that target is considered insufficient given the level of global emissions and compared to other industries, including aviation, which is aiming for net zero by the same mid-century deadline.

Nations in support of more ambitious cuts want the IMO to align its goals with the Paris Agreement’s global warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

Some 45 countries — including the European Union, the United States, Britain, Fiji, the Marshall Islands and Norway — support a net zero target for the sector by 2050.

Most also support an intermediate target for 2030.

But emerging market exporters, particularly Brazil and China, have strongly resisted a change, according to observers at talks that started in late June ahead of the decision-making MEPC meeting.

A briefing note circulated by China framed the proposals as “unrealistic” and an effort by developed countries to boost their economic competitiveness by increasing shipping costs.

A ‘no-brainer’

Ships transport 90pc of the world’s goods, and the sector emits around a billion tonnes of greenhouse gases every year, the equivalent of Germany or Japan.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2023